Haven
Haven is a sprawling metropolis conveniently located at the geographic center of the Material Plane, on a continent known as The Northland. It is the beating heart of civilization, home to thousands of races comprising several hundred million individuals. The exact size and population of the city is unknowable, as it is constantly expanding. Anything and everything can be found within the city, a fact which only serves to attract more to its bustling neighborhoods from far-away kingdoms and even from other planes. Geography Haven is bordered to the north by an enormous, nearly-impenetrable wall of mountains called the Winterpeaks which separate the city from the tundra wastelands at the far north of The Northland, commonly called The Freeze. The Winterpeaks were once home to a flight of white dragons that forced early human settlers out of The Northland, but several centuries later they were slaughtered by the Fjordssons. Haven stretches across the width of The Northland (approximately 1,000 miles) to border the Gerrim Sea in the east and the Ukrat Sea in the west, seas which were named for what nations ships departing from Haven might find on the other side (Gerrim and Ukrat, respectively). By foot, a journey between Haven's eastern and western ports may take several weeks. To the south of Haven lies The Owlands, the remaining portion of what was once known as the Great Forest. This forest once covered most of The Northland, but much of it has since been cleared as Haven has continued to expand. The portion that remains is the region claimed by the owlbears of Haven as their ancestral home, containing several temples and holy sites from their ancient empire dating back to 10,000 BH. Protecting this land from Haven's reach is a constant political battle for owlbear nobles. Haven itself radiates outward roughly like a semicircle from the Palace of the Tetrarchs, with the Winterpeaks forming the northern, straight edge part of the semicircle. The Palace sits on a hill near the base of the tallest Winterpeak, Mount Phoenix, which is located almost exactly at the longitudinal center of the mountain range and The Northland. The palace is roughly equidistant from both coasts (about 500 miles in either direction), and is nearly 1,500 miles from the southern border of the city. The districts closest to The Palace are built on hillsides and are home to the wealthy and powerful. The city flattens out further from The Palace, and generally the social status of Haven's citizens decreases as distance from The Palace increases. The notable exceptions to this are the areas sometimes collectively referred to as the Home Wards. The Home Wards The Silken Way The Silken Way is an area of Haven almost exclusively populated by Arachne, and is the heart of Arachne society and culture within the city. This ward occupies the same ground as the Arachne's ancestral home in the Great Forest, but with the exception of a small park containing a few relics of the past, the Arachne have assimilated into Haven and have built up a densely populated and prosperous home. Their webbing allows them to easily cross between buildings at heights, and so their architecture is not constrained to conventions common to other humanoids; entrances and storefronts being able to be placed at any level results in a population that freely skitters across a matrix of webs, rather than bustling past each other in a crowd at street level. Some key roads are kept web-free so that non-Arachne may have an easier time passing through, much to the annoyance of the ward's residents. Norvesh During the catastrophic tsunami and flooding of Haven following the Leviathan Impact, many of the outer regions of the city were completely washed away, with the inner core still standing but mostly ruined. During this dark period in Haven's history, opportunity seekers from other lands sailed to The Northland to stake their claim on the large areas of open land now available. One of these settlements was a port town on the west coast called Norvesh which resulted from a collaboration between several groups of non-Havenic humans, a clan of frost giants, and some enterprising dragonborn merchants. To this day, due to the extreme wealth of some of its notable citizens, Norvesh maintains more autonomy than other neighborhoods in the city and has become a center for the trade of exotic goods and specialty services which are illegal in the rest of Haven. In addition to this legal specialized trade, Norvesh is also a major center of black market trading and organized crime. The Owlbear Quarter Phulubulopolis NOT FINISHED